What you are actually buying
The price of a card design is mostly determined by scope, and scope has three components: how many formats are covered, how much exploration is included before a direction is chosen, and how many rounds of refinement follow it.
A single virtual card, one direction, one revision round, is a small piece of work. A coordinated system across virtual, plastic and metal, where each has to work on its own terms while reading as one family, is several times the work, because each format brings its own constraints and each has to be resolved separately.
- Formats covered
- Virtual, plastic and metal each carry their own constraints and their own files.
- Concepts explored
- More distinct directions means more design work before anything is chosen.
- Revision rounds
- Refinement is where a design becomes finished. It is also genuinely time-consuming.
- Deliverables
- Layered vector files are a different deliverable from a flat visual.
- Timeline
- Compressing a schedule means displacing other work, which is why express delivery costs more.
Why quotes vary so much
Three pricing models dominate, and they produce very different numbers for the same work.
A freelance day rate is the cheapest headline figure and the least predictable total, because the number of days is not known at the outset. An agency retainer is the most expensive and usually bundles card design into a broader brand engagement, sensible if you are buying the brand too, wasteful if you already have one. A fixed-price package sits between them: the scope is defined up front, and so is the number.
The trade-off with fixed pricing is worth stating plainly. You get certainty, and in exchange the scope is defined up front. Anything beyond it is quoted separately, so you always see a number before any extra work starts.
| Model | Certainty of cost | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance day rate | Low | Scope is small and you can manage it closely |
| Agency retainer | Medium | You are buying a full brand engagement |
| Fixed-price package | High | The deliverables are known and you want a firm number |
The costs that are not the design
A card programme has costs beyond the artwork, and confusing them with the design fee is a common source of budget surprises. Manufacturing is priced per card by your manufacturer and depends on material, finish and volume. Personalisation, packaging and fulfilment are separate again. Scheme and issuing costs sit with your scheme and issuing partner.
Design is a one-time cost against a programme that then runs for years. It is usually a small line in the total, and it is the line that determines what every card in that programme looks like.
Design and manufacturing are priced separately. We can source the finished cards through our own network, sampling included, quoted on its own. Issuing sits with your issuing partner.
What a fixed-price package should contain
A fixed price is only meaningful if the scope behind it is specific. It helps to see a named set of formats, a stated number of concepts, a stated number of revision rounds and a named list of file formats, because those are what decide how much work a project really is.
The reason this matters is that the expensive part of a design project is rarely the first version. It is the refinement, the second and third opinions, the back of the card that nobody thought about, and the production files at the end. A price that covers only the first version looks competitive and then grows.
It is equally reasonable for a package to exclude things, provided the exclusions are stated in advance. Adapting an approved design to a particular manufacturer's technical template is genuinely separate work, and so is designing a brand identity that does not yet exist. What is not reasonable is discovering an exclusion after the invoice.
- Named formats
- Which of virtual, plastic and metal are covered, not "a card design".
- A stated number of concepts
- So you know how much exploration you are buying before choosing.
- A stated number of revision rounds
- With a definition of what constitutes one round.
- Final files
- Layered, editable vector artwork, the thing a manufacturer can actually use.
- Clear ownership terms
- Written down, before the project starts rather than at handover.
- Explicit exclusions
- Stated up front. An honest exclusion is far better than a vague inclusion.
Paying for speed
Express delivery is priced differently from ordinary work because it is a different thing: it displaces other projects rather than adding hours to the same week. That is why an express surcharge is typically a percentage of the base price rather than a small fixed fee.
It is worth it when a real external deadline exists: a launch date, a partner commitment, a campaign that has already been bought. It is less useful when the deadline is internal and moveable, because compressing our schedule also compresses your own review time, and reviews are where card designs improve.
Budgeting for a programme, not a card
Card design is usually commissioned once and lives for years, across several tiers and at least two media. Budgeting for a single artwork tends to produce a design that has to be redone the first time the programme adds a tier.
The more useful frame is to ask what the programme will look like in two years. If a premium tier is likely, designing the system now, so the premium card is a considered step within a family rather than a fresh start, is cheaper than commissioning it twice. If the programme is genuinely one virtual card, then buy one virtual card and do not pay for a system you will never use.
If you are happy for the finished design to appear in our portfolio, that permission earns you a fixed 10% discount. It is a stated percentage rather than something to negotiate, and you can decline it without any effect on the price of the work itself.
Getting a number you can rely on
Whoever you commission, the questions that make a quote comparable are the same. Ask them before comparing prices, because a cheap quote that excludes final files is not cheaper.
- Which formats are included?
- And what does adding another one cost, specifically?
- How many distinct concepts?
- Genuinely different directions, not the same idea in three colours.
- How many revision rounds, and what counts as one?
- The definition matters as much as the number.
- Do I receive editable vector source files?
- If not, your next change has to go through them.
- Who owns the final design?
- Get the answer in writing before work starts.
- What is explicitly excluded?
- Manufacturer template adaptation is the usual answer, and it is fair, as long as it is stated.